Reader Story: Harvey, St Mungo’s Learning Community, Glasgow

"Teachers overhearing from their rooms or passing by are astounded at how positive and enthralled Harvey has been, especially as his default setting in class is to be so reticent and dour."

Harvey lives in his sibling’s more exuberant shadow and is by far the least confident of the two. Whilst his peers have all been selected to read in groups, Harvey's teachers decided he would benefit most by having some exclusive time and reading in a one-to-one session.

When I first met Harvey, he was incredibly stony faced and made little to no eye contact throughout the entirety of our early sessions. However, as we progressed he began to enjoy the short stories more and really valued having an hour without his brother or any of his peers close at hand. The big breakthrough for Harvey came when reading the Skellig extract from A Little, Aloud for Children. Harvey loved the suspense and horror of finding a decrepit man in his garage and was gripped throughout. At the end of the session when I asked him for a mark out of 10 he gave it an 8. When I asked him why only an 8 he said “I’d give it 10 if we knew who the man was”. When I told Harvey that this was an extract from a longer story and that we could read it and find out if he liked he beamed from ear to ear and nodded, repeatedly saying “Yes!”.

Since then Harvey has given the story 10 out of 10 each week, been really articulate in his responses to meeting Mina, his concerns for the baby and how it must feel to be Michael. Teachers overhearing from their rooms or passing by are astounded at how positive and enthralled Harvey has been, especially as his default setting in class is to be so reticent and dour. Each week he remembers exactly where we have left off and sits smiling for an hour as we continue with the story.

*Please note all Reader Stories are anonymised